WordPress 4.1 – New Improvements to Watch Out For

Considering the huge number of features in WordPress 3.0, WordPress users had high hopes from WordPress version 4.0. But to the disappointment of users, the new release wasn’t the same leap as WordPress 3.0 was. However, the upcoming WordPress 4.1 release is said to deliver what 4.0 didn’t.

The new version release will boast several great features, however, the three most important features that you should look forward to are: a new default theme, a new distraction-free writing mode and easy language access.

The upcoming 4.1 release will bring forth many new and exciting improvements both for the WordPress users and developers. In this post, we’ll discuss about what to look forward to in WordPress 4.1.

Highlights of WordPress 4.1

People who have been using WordPress for running their website, will love the new features introduced with WordPress 4.1, such as:

Twenty Fifteen WordPress Theme: If you didn’t like the default Twenty Fourteen WordPress theme, then the new default Twenty Fifteen theme isn’t going to disappoint you. It features a much cleaner look compared to Twenty Fourteen theme, it’s responsive and blog-focused. In fact, the new default theme is a good example of “how less is more”. Twenty Fifteen theme is designed according to the flat design trend, and adds sufficing depth with borders – for saving the theme from becoming uninteresting. The theme has been officially added to WordPress 4.1 development version. You can take help of a custom WordPress development company for installation of the theme.

Improved Distraction-Free Mode: In order to streamline the post editing process a step further, improvements have been made to the existing distraction-free mode. The distraction-free mode was introduced in WordPress 4.0, giving you access to the fullscreen mode and helping you to write without distraction. But there was a problem: the existing WP version hides everything, and you can access your tools only when you exit from the fullscreen mode.

The new distraction-free mode helps to solve this problem, as it also hides everything excluding the post editor when you’re typing. This feature might seem baffling at first, but you’ll probably like it after using it for a while.

Inline Image Editing Toolbar: Many WordPress beginners usually find aligning images in the WP post editor a daunting task. But with 4.1 new inline image editing toolbar, clicking on an image will enable users to see alignment options instantly (along with a button to get rid of the alignment).

Access to Languages Has Never Been This Easier: WordPress 4.1 will give you the ability to auto-install new language packs from admin area – with the help of a new language switcher. It will help you view the installed and available languages. You just simply need to choose any available language, and WordPress will automatically download the selected language and will apply it to your WP install.

Changes for Developers :

WordPress 4.1 will introduce many new features for developers to tinker. Some of them are listed as below:

Optimized Title Tags: Controlling the output of title tags of WordPress documents hasn’t been an easy feast for the developers. A new patch has been proposed in WP 4.1 version, allowing theme developers to output the title tags via the wp_head() hook. This feature is aimed at making it possible for the developers to manage the document titles from the backend, as and when needed. What’s more? A forward-compatible way is introduced that will enable the plugin and theme developers to make the output of document titles customizable.

Using the below code snippet will help in adding full backwards compatibility in existing themes:

if ( ! function_exists( ‘_wp_render_title_tag’ ) ) :

function theme_slug_render_title() {

echo ‘<title>’ . wp_title( ‘|’, false, ‘right’ ) . “</title>\n”;

}

add_action( ‘wp_head’, ‘theme_slug_render_title’ );

endif;

Theme Customizer API: Plenty of modifications have been added to the WordPress customizer API in 4.1, which aims at developing a comprehensive JavaScript API for customizer. In addition, a lot of improvements for contextual panels and sections will be available. For instance, when users invoke $wp_customize->add_section(), they’ll be able to pass a callback to determine whether the section is significant to the currently viewed URL.

Query Improvements: A lot of query improvements will be available in WordPress 4.1, including rewritten and improved meta, comment etc. Most importantly, WP_Meta_Query has been rewritten, which in turn, will result in introducing lots of improvements. So, in case you’ve been using meta queries, then this will be a welcoming change for you.

Let’s consider an example, let’s say, you’ve posts that contain city and state metadata. And if you want to get all the posts that either contains ‘city in Miami’ and ‘state in Ohio’, or ‘city in Augusta’ and ‘state in Maine’, then your query will look like as follows:

$query = new WP_Query( array(

‘meta_query’ => array(

‘relation’ => ‘OR’,

array(

‘relation’ => ‘AND’,

array(

‘key’ => ‘city’,

‘value’ => ‘Miami’,

),

array(

‘key’ => ‘state’,

‘value’ => ‘Ohio’,

),

),

array(

‘relation’ => ‘AND’,

array(

‘key’ => ‘city’,

‘value’ => ‘Augusta’,

),

array(

‘key’ => ‘state’,

‘value’ => ‘Maine’,

),

),

),

) );

Wrapping Up!

If you weren’t too happy with the WordPress 4.0 release, then probably the upcoming 4.1 version will prove advantageous for you. Hopefully, this post will help you have a basic understanding of what to expect from WordPress 4.1. You’ll know about the new improvements that will be introduced with the release of WordPress 4.1 version.

Lastly, in case you want to keep up with the major changes introduced in WordPress 4.1, you should go through the 4.1 tagged posts published in make.wordpress.com.

Amy Brown is a WordPress developer by profession and a writer by hobby. She works for WordPrax Ltd.- WordPress plugin development company with a global reach. In case, you have made up your mind on creating a custom plugin it is better to hire WordPress expert - if coding is not your thing.